Pencil on Paper: meet the stylus for FiftyThree's popular iPad sketching app

When you're the creator of an award-winning iPad sketchbook app, making your own stylus would be a logical move. Unsurprisingly, that's exactly what FiftyThree, the brains behind Microsoft's Courier project and developers of Paper, intend to do. The company's new "Pencil" capacitive stylus has just popped up at the FCC, outlining its plans to equip Paper users with a rubber-tipped low power Bluetooth accessory that can draw on a touchscreen "like a canvas." The documents detail two models: one crafted from wood and the other from aluminum alloy.

The FCC approval highlights FiftyThree's desire to further expand beyond Apple's App Store and venture into new markets. The company recently partnered with Moleskine to allow Paper users to create a $40 custom-printed 15-page "Book" of sketches and designs created within the app. The new products will directly compete with Wacom's bluetooth-enabled stylii, and of course with plain old fingers -- which will likely still be welcome in the Paper app, even after the Pencil comes to market.